Tag Archive for ‘Le Tour de France 2016’

I braved the tourists and human statues up on Edinburgh’s High Street to see if I could get Monday’s L’Equipe in the International Newsagents – it’s the one for all the good Tour stats. But alas, no dice – I had to settle for Sunday’s Observer and Monday’s Guardian where it’s wall to wall Christopher and Sky.

Chris Froome rode well, no doubt, and showed panache when he won that stage off the descent and when he joined up with World Champion Peter Sagan – surely the ‘Man Of The Tour’? – and ‘Bison’ Bodnar to ambush the sprinters, his time trialling was top drawer and no one could out climb him. So we can’t criticise the man – but style, soul, personality, colour are all missing.

I thought I’d go back to my pre-Tour predictions and see how I fared as my final words on The Big Loop.

If anyone harboured any doubts about the fact that Froome was going to win this Tour it took him just 30 minutes to straighten things out. He destroyed everyone in including the man who’s probably the world’s number one ‘chronoman’ – Tom Dumoulin. Whilst the mountains may be beautiful, a time trial up one is a daunting prospect.

But riders like Keisse and Hayman just have to ‘get on with it’ riding stages way outside their comfort zones. We got ourselves set up to follow big Lithuanian Ramunas Navardauskas in the time test and duly lined up behind the Cannondale car. The course was beautiful – but savage with varying gradients, fast bits, some real killer ramps and a descent to close.

How are the mighty fallen? We had to double check the number – but ‘yes’ it was Tejay, way off the back and just ‘riding in’ on the Col de la Forclaz – well, we got that one right, we said he do nothing in this race.

But we did also say that Nairo Quintana would win it – but that was more out of hope than anything else but it would be tall, skinny Russian Ilnur Zakarin who would take the day, eventually.

‘Rest day’ – it’s a misnomer if you’re a fanatic; but you could do one interview then hang out, I guess?

But if you’re like us, confirmed saddos, then it’s a great opportunity to get a lot of talking and snapping done.

Albeit on rest days you can linger a bit longer over breakfast – which is nice in a week of always having to be somewhere/do something right now or in five minutes.

Our Suisse digs were good, if expensive, but the lassies who ran it were friendly and late night “pieces” [sandwiches, to our non-Scottish readers!] and beer were no bother to them and a godsend to us.

We’d arranged to meet the up and coming Trek sprinter, Edward Theuns on the rest day but unfortunately he crashed out.

Never letting an opportunity go past however, we asked our Trek contact if we could get an interview with Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne winner, Jasper Stuyven.

Peter Sagan, again! There’s little left to say about the man but as soon as we walked the last couple of kilometres we knew it was one for him – a sharp cobbled climb up from the river, across a cobbled bridge, past the bear pit then another nippy climb before the 1,000 metre, straight as a dye, pan flat finish straight.

We thought just maybe Cav could hang on but in the event they were going mad on to the climb up from the river and it was too much for the ‘pure’ fast men but ideal for those who come to the fore when it’s tough – Kristoff was well there and good to see Degenkolb riding back into form.

While Jarlinson Pantana was winning the stage today for IAM Cycling and Columbia (that’s his contract sorted for 2017 – IAM folds at the end of the season) Ed and Callum were race-bound, flying in to Geneva to get the car and get organised with race accreditation.

Another criminally boring stage saved by a beautiful finale with Cav making it 30 stage wins – there are few superlatives left for the Manxman. Good to see Kristoff in second spot; the remarkable Sagan was right there in third spot and very nice to see John Degenkolb up there in fourth spot. Kittel got it wrong today and Greipel was again off the pace.

The new crowned King of the Chrono is Dutchman Tom Dumoulin (Giant). He put a minute into maillot jaune Froome in today’s technical and tough time test and set himself as the number one favourite for the Rio Olympic Time Trial.

And that’s after a brilliant mountain stage win last weekend in Andorra.

The stage was run with a muted characteristic, minutes silences at the beginning and end of the stage, no announcements or music played, in respect for the people killed in the atrocity in Nice last night.

First of all, a fantastic win by Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal), let’s say that first and foremost. The Belgian was away all day then won the sprint from another two survivors of the big break of the day. As a bonus, he takes the polka dot jersey, too. De Gendt He’s tamed the Stelvio and (most of) the Ventoux – he just needs to win on the Angleru now…

But now we have to look at the sheer insanity of what happened behind De Gendt; Froome (Sky) counters then distances Quintana (Movistar) high on the Ventoux, Porte (BMC) and Mollema (trek) impress by matching Froome, the Dutchman even attacks him; but then… Porte rides hard into the back of a TV camera motorbike which stops in front of him – apparently caused by the crowd spilling into the road – Froome and Mollema have no way of avoiding the pileup. Mollema manages to get mobile quickly but not Porte or Froome…

Dimension Data’s Steve Cummings has been a stage race winner in the Tour of the Mediterranean; a semi-classic winner in the Coppa Bernocchi and a stage winner in the Giro della Reggio Calabria, Tour of the Algarve, Vuelta, Tour de France, Tirreno-Adriatico, Tour of the Basque Country and Dauphine. Last weekend he added another beautiful Tour de France stage to his palmarès.

It was classic Cummings, pick the stage for the move, infiltrate the break of the day, go with the key move when the break brings to splinter, go solo a ways from the finish then win in solitary splendour, leaving some of the sport’s biggest names in his wake. With the ink barely dry on the finishing sheets for Wednesday’s Stage 11 mad blast into Montpelier, VeloVeritas spoke to Steve about his Tour thus far and of course, his magnificent Stage Seven win.

It COULD have been a ‘snooze-fest.’ It SHOULD have been a sprinters stage. Enter, stage left one superb Slovakian in green, Mr. Peter Sagan (Tinkoff).

He attacks from the front in the cross winds inside 12 K to go with Polish TT champ team mate Bodnar aka ‘The Bison’ and spreads pure panic among the world’s best riders – but that skinny Sky man Froome is sharp again, as is team mate Thomas.

The sprinters are denied – but it’s a sprinter who wins. It was big smiled Aussie, Michael Matthews (Orica) kicking to glory from Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) with Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) in third spot – a podium of real quality from the big day-long breakaway.

And whilst Sagan may not have taken the stage bouquet he took the stage by the scruff of the neck and thrust himself back into green – possible all the way to Paris, now.

But all that said – no real changes from yesterday and the Bigs only race the last few kilometres…

The road rises straight from the off today with the first cat. climb Port de Bonaigua, 13.7km, average gradient of 6.1% – and the action started right away with it; the ‘riders all over the hill’ of cliché.

Here at VeloVeritas…

...we reckon cycling matters. We aim to provide our readers with truthful, interesting and unique articles about the sport we love.

We cover all aspects of cycling by actually being there, in the mix: from the local "10" to the famous WorldTour "monuments" - classics like Milan-SanRemo and the Tour of Lombardy, the World Championships, the winter Six Days, and of course the Grand Tours.

We attend many local races as well as work on the professional circuit - and we do it all with a Scottish accent.